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This chapter introduces the reader to the Naxalite movement, its history and historiography, and outlines the ethnographic context on which the book draws. It maps the movement particularly in terms of its gendered and classed economies, and thereby locates it in a longer tradition of communist and peasant struggles in Bengal and accompanied anxieties around sexuality, gender, class, and violence. This discussion also outlines the conceptual gaps in the feminist theorization of resistant violence, and calls for a stronger understanding of everyday violence as being continuous with the...

This chapter introduces the reader to the Naxalite movement, its history and historiography, and outlines the ethnographic context on which the book draws. It maps the movement particularly in terms of its gendered and classed economies, and thereby locates it in a longer tradition of communist and peasant struggles in Bengal and accompanied anxieties around sexuality, gender, class, and violence. This discussion also outlines the conceptual gaps in the feminist theorization of resistant violence, and calls for a stronger understanding of everyday violence as being continuous with the violence of political conflict. The last part of this chapter outlines the ethnographic context on which the book draws, offering some reflections on the kinds of issues thrown up in the course of fieldwork conducted in Kolkata.